Two year executive summary

Report for the 2003 general assembly

Milano, Italy, June 21st, 2003

After the Free Software Foundation Europe was proclaimed with a
"Declaration of Intent - Free Software Foundation Europe" [1] in which
all interested Free Software advocates from all over Europe were
invited to participate in the creation of this common vision, the FSFE
officially began its work March 10th, 2001 and finished the
founding process April 24th, 2001.

The 2003 general assembly in Milano, Italy on June 21st 2003 seems
like a good opportunity to briefly recap some of the things going on
in these two years.

Initially, a lot of the work was going into issues of bureaucracy,
legal questions and informing people about the FSFE. This was
done on the web, in mailing lists, at tradeshows and conferences.

OECD Conference in Tokyo

Soon after the FSFE took up its work, it was already accepted by
major political players. An example for this was when the German
representative of the FSFE, Bernhard Reiter, was asked by the
German ministry of economics (BMWi) to speak about Free Software at an
OECD conference in Tokyo in September 2001. At this occasion, Bernhard
Reiter also had the support of LinuxTag, Linux Verband, German Unix
User Group to speak for the German Free Software scene.

"We speak about Free Software" campaign

Soon after it started working, Free Software companies were
approaching the FSFE to ask for a campaign to increase the
visibility of Free Software and explain the advantages of the Free
Software terminology in comparison with Open Source.

One of the main reasons for this was that they were experiencing an
invasion into their market by proprietary software vendors exploiting
the common "it's open source if you can see the source code"
misunderstanding, claiming to offer something similar to what the Free
Software companies were providing.

Therefore, in November 2001, the FSFE launched the "We speak
about Free Software" campaign [2] with support of Free Software
companies across Europe.

Originally only meant for companies, we made one exception by adding
an individual to the list when Bruce Perens, author of the Open Source
Definition, asked us to be added soon after the campaign was launched.

Bürgerturm ("Citizen Tower")

The FSFE also provided input and background about Free Software
in projects that were not directly software-related, like the
Bürgerturm ("Citizen Tower") project [3] in Berlin, Germany.

The vision behind this project was to allow a free and cooperative
design process to build a building by the citizens for the citizens in
the heart of Berlin. According to the initial idea, the design process
as well as the finished building should follow the Free Software
philosophy, creating a visible and tangible implementation of the
Free Software spirit.

In the end, the group hoped to create a multifunctional building that
would be both real and virtual and that would be open to all citizens
24hrs a day.

Although the idea turned out to be too ambitious for the group that
gathered around it, the ideas and documents remain available and we
hope that one day someone will pick them up and bring them to life.

Free Software for German Parliament

Many people were following the discussion about a possible shift to
GNU/Linux by the German parliament. The FSFE actively
contributed to that discussion in December 2001 [4] and provided the
philosophical stepping stone for the Bundestux [5] project, which is
still working to further Free Software in public administration.

Commission on Intellectual Property Rights

On January 21st, 2002, the Commission on Intellectual Property Rights
[6] took place in London, UK. Besides participants from Microsoft and the
media industry, Georg Greve, president of the FSFE, was invited
to the expert workshop on "Copyright, Software and the Internet."

When the final report came out in September 2002, it recommended that
developing countries should consider use of Free Software. [7][8]

Investigation of the European Commission against Microsoft

Also in January 2001, the FSFE got asked for input on the
ongoing investigation against Microsoft by the European
Commission. Thanks to the quick and competent reaction of the SAMBA
team, Dr. Peter Gerwinski, Head of Office of the FSFE, was able
to provide concrete material on how Microsoft was trying to keep
competitors out of the market.

German Copyright law revision

Another issue also found its end that month. The German ministry of
justice was planning a revision of Copyright law to protect artists
from exploitation by the media industry through mandatory payment for
transfer of rights. Unfortunately, this might have jeopardised the
legal security of commercial Free Software, as Free Software is
considered a gift under German law.

Thanks to the well-established cooperation with ifross [9] -- a German
institute for legal questions of Free Software -- the FSFE was
able to support the ifross in requesting a supplement to that specific
law, which got accepted in January 2002. [10]

Now the law -- which was enacted April 2002 -- contains an exception
for Free Software.

A GNU/Linux Audio Distribution (AGNULA)

After many months of preparation and paperwork, the AGNULA project
[11] finally took off in April 2002 with the goal of creating an
entirely Free Software GNU/Linux Audio distribution for professional
users. Thanks to this, the FSFE became official partner of the
European Commission within a year after being started.

Within the AGNULA project, the FSFE determines the Copyright and
licensing policy, decides which licenses and software packages are
acceptable and makes sure the long-term and community interests are
taken into account. [12]

6th Framework Programme of the European Commission

As some people may know, the European Commission has programs to
further pan-European research and development, called "framework
programmes", which last for four years. Within these framework
programmes, there are certain areas, one of which is "Information
Society Technologies" (IST), the area concerned with information
technology. AGNULA for instance was part of the 5th framework
programme IST area.

The 6th framework programme (FP6) was prepared for launch towards the
end of 2002 and originally, there was no mentioning of Free Software.

So the FSFE wrote a recommendation [13] for the 6th framework
programme in which the advantages of Free Software for Europe as a
region and the European countries were explained and in which
suggestions were made as to how to capitalise on them. This suggestion
was backed by over 50 parties throughout Europe and filed in April
2002.

In June 2002, the FSFE also backed this up by filing two
expressions of interest, FOCAL ("FOcusing Competence for Advantages of
Liberty") [14] and LAFIS ("LAying the Foundations for Information
Society") [15] with some of the parties who signed the recommendation
in order to show that there was real interest in doing something about
Free software in the FP6.

As of December 2002, the suggestion of the FSFE -- namely to
give projects with Free Software an evaluation bonus in the rating
process, increasing the chances of Free Software projects in
comparison with proprietary software -- became part of the IST work
programme. [16]

As a result, the whole budget of the IST work programme, containing
1725 million Euro, is available with a preference for Free Software.

The FSFE is now working to help consortia for Free Software find
and organise themselves to make sure that as many projects as possible
will make use of this opportunity. [17]

Web page

In January 2003, after a process of over one year, Jonas Öberg,
vice-president of the FSFE, was finally able to put the new FSFE web
page on-line with a rather unique structural layout. [18]

In order to appreciate the thought that has gone into the design, one
should know that the FSFE follows a federal approach with
parallel local and European/global level. Also everything is
translated into as many languages as possible, while missing or
outdated translations must not pose problems.

This makes for a very complex situation -- but trying to achieve the
maximum transparency possible, that complexity should not be the
concern of the web site visitor. Also the visitor should always get
the best match in terms of selected language regardless of which
translations exist or whether they might be outdated.

The solution for this problem is the "focus" approach. If no focus is
selected, people will see all news and projects that are of European
and global interest. But if they select certain regions of special
interest -- like Italy, France or Germany -- they will also see the
information of specific interest to these countries.

Unlike the situation for other web pages, that local information does
not hide any European or global information, however -- it is provided
additionally. So regardless of the focus, the global information
always remains visible and accessible.

Of course we are still in need of more translators and translations,
as always.

Fiduciary Licence Agreement (FLA)

With increasing interest in Free Software by companies and
governments, the question of legal safety and maintainability are also
becoming more important. At the same time, authors have a harder time
taking care of the legal needs of their projects and also sometimes
find themselves in the situation of being attacked legally.

In order to provide protection against this and increase the legal
security of Free Software, the FSFE has worked on the Fiduciary
Licence Agreement (FLA) [19] with experts in Free Software legal
issues, which was published in February 2003.

This agreement allows authors to make the FSFE their fiduciary
for all legal issues and provides a possible solution for the needs of
several software projects that need to establish some form of rights
management.

bridge foundation

June 2003, the bridge foundation [20] was founded in Berlin, Germany
with the goal of furthering questions of digital citizenship rights in
the information society.

The FSFE supports this foundation ideally and personally through
its president, Georg Greve, who is member of the jury for the bridge
ideas contest, in which 15000 EUR will be available to the project
that seems most promising in spreading awareness for these issues.

Ongoing activities

Of course, besides these concrete projects there were other ongoing
activities in which the FSFE was active or provided assistance
or a platform to the activits in these areas.

Examples include work against the European equivalent of the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), the European Copyright Directive
(EUCD) [21]. This law -- which is currently transcribed into national
law -- provides legal measures for monopolies on file formats and
vendor lock-in, silent removal of fair use rights, massive reduction
of the freedom of speech and censorship.

Another area are software patents [22], in which lobby groups are
trying to seal up the market and divide up the shares for the
information society among themselves to make sure noone else will be
in a position to contribute. Consequently, this not only reduces
innovation and competition, they also provide means of enforcing
monopolies on file formats and vendor lock-in.

During the first general assembly of the FSFE, education was
identified as one of the most important areas for activity so young
people and students would have the chance of getting in touch with
knowledge instead of mere product schooling. Therefore the FSFE
started a Free Software in Education [23] working group.

Also, the FSFE was very happy to provide a home for the
Tux&GNU@School [24] column by Mario Fux, a column about educational
Free Software, under the roof of this working group.

On a less serious note, the the FSFE also wanted to uphold the
t-shirt tradition and not only provided the first European FSF shirts,
it also created the first girlie shirts with GPL preamble on the back
as well as the first GNU pins ever. [25]

Associates

One of the fundamentals of Free Software is that we do not stand
alone. And just like this is true for individuals, the FSFE also
believes in this with respect to organisations, which builds the basis
of the associate organisation [26] status.

The members of these organisations can get directly involved in all
FSFE activities and without them, a lot of the work would not
have been possible.

If you wish to become involved in the FSFE, joining one of the
existing associate organisations, making your organisation an
associate or creating an associate organisation is definitely the most
efficient way.

Shows/Talks

One of the most tedious, but very necessary tasks is to be present at
tradeshows, create and spread distribution material, talk to the
people and inform them about Free Software and the value of freedom in
speeches and podium discussions.

Outlook

For the next years, there is still a lot of work ahead of us.

We are currently awaiting the outcome of the evaluation for the "GNU
Coordination Action Network" (GNUCAN) which was filed for the first
call of the FP6 IST program. Also there are plans to start working on
a "Free Software for a Mobile World" (GNUBILE) proposal.

In order to firmly root Free Software in society and make sure that it
is here to stay, we also need to further it in the business field. Our
hope is that we will soon find the time and resources to work on the
GNU Business Network, which will set out to do that.

As the proprietary software companies have increased their spendings
on lobbying against Free Software to preserve their monopolies, we
also need to intensify our political work.

One of the events where this will be necessary is the "World Summit on
the Information Society" (WSIS) [35] at the end of 2003. The
preparation is already in full progress and the FSFE has for
instance major support by other German civil societies to represent
the German civil society movement in this process, but we will need to
intensify our efforts.

And of course we hope to get more countries officially and
inofficially involved in the FSFE. This does require significant
work by the local activitists, but we are optimistic that more
countries will participate soon.

Finally, we would like to thank all of you who have supported us in
the past -- without you to stand at tradeshow booths, talk to the
people, translate documents, make contacts, ask companies to donate or
donate yourself, we could not have done as much as we did!

And if you haven't supported us yet but would like to do so,
information about this can be found online. [36] [37]